CD (Portland) — “The moment regular folks beat [Wall Street] at their own rigged game, it’s SHUT IT DOWN.” US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) expressed the views of many progressives as the country and the world absorbed the impact of the “short squeeze” on GameStop and other stocks.

In what many progressives described as a lesson in the “absurdity” of capitalism, small money investors on the internet message board Reddit, many of them expressing hostility toward Wall Street, banded together to bid up the price of the GameStop stock, understanding that in doing so they would cause massive financial damage to hedge funds such as Melvin Capital, which they view as capitalist vultures producing riches for themselves but nothing of social value.

This action caused outrage among Wall Street elites and on pro-business news channels such as CNBC. Those whose mantra for decades has been “deregulation” have suddenly turned on a dime and are now calling for regulators to intervene.

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), meanwhile, called on the US Congress to investigate Robinhood after the trading app—which helped the amateur investors on Reddit boost the price of GameStop’s stock—stopped allowing users to purchase stock in the video game retailer and other hot picks.

“This is unacceptable,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who is a member of the House Financial Services Committee. “We now need to know more about Robinhood’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.”

As the price of GameStop’s stock fell precipitously as an apparent result of these technical curbs, some Robinhood users announced that they would sue the company.

Tlaib called Robinhood’s actions “absurd,” and echoed her colleague’s demand for “a hearing on Robinhood’s market manipulation.”

“They’re blocking the ability to trade to protect Wall Street hedge funds, stealing millions of dollars from their users to protect people who’ve used the stock market as a casino for decades,” she added.

Many commentators have decried the double standards that allow Wall Street firms to manipulate markets to maximize profit but punish Redditors for doing the same.

“If Redditors rallying GameStop is unacceptable market manipulation,” tweeted former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, “what would you call it when greedy Wall Street bankers gambled away our entire economy in 2008 and faced no consequences?”

Originally published at Common Dreams. Republished by cc by-sa 3.0. Minor edits for style and content.

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